


Learning to Cook for Toddlers

by Culumacilinte



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [1]
Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Gen, Short & Sweet, The Zoo Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 19:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14339490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: Set pre-series. Vince barely feels like an adult himself, and now he has to look after magically de-aged toddler Howard.





	Learning to Cook for Toddlers

‘I don’t like salad’, Howard says. And then adds, apparently just for good measure, ‘Or eye contact.’

He is, despite his words, looking straight into Vince’s eyes as he says this, with determined, earnest seriousness. In his pudgy little face, his glittery brown shrew eyes look bigger than Vince is used to. Vince blinks. ‘Uhh, alright. What… do you like to eat? I’ve got some fruit? Or crisps. Or, like, Pot Noodle, if you want?’ Also a drawerful of sweets, but he reckons it’s probably best not to mention that. He doesn’t know a lot about kids, but he knows that much.

Howard thinks very carefully about this question for a moment. ‘Fish sticks’re good. And chips. Mum makes shepherd pie, I like that.’

Vince is rubbish at cooking; he likes salads because they’re easy to make; all you have to do is chop a bunch of stuff up and throw it in a bowl and bang, there’s dinner. He also likes them, he’ll admit to himself, because they remind him of his childhood, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, almost never anything cooked, unless Bryan came back from the city with takeaway.

Howard, he’s discovering, is not  _anything_  like he remembers himself being as a child. This is Howard younger than Vince ever knew him at school, small and pudgy and apparently endlessly fussy, sliding between imperious and demanding and needy and freaked at the drop of a hat. He breaks into tears at the slightest provocation. Vince remembers himself as a child as being mostly cheerful, and full of ways to entertain himself; Howard is… not that. At first he’d thought he could just stow him in the Keeper’s Hut while he got about his day, keep him happy with some telly and sweets, but Howard had quickly proved him very wrong about that.

There’s no-one to admit it to, other than Naboo, but Vince is  _freaked the fuck out_. He isn’t a proper grown up at all! That’s Howard’s job, to be the grown up! Except that now Howard is a toddler, and Vince feels like an unprepared teenage mum.

‘Okay’, he says, getting down on the floor and offering Howard a grin. ‘Well, I ain’t got any of those things, but we could order in some takeaway, yeah? Make a proper treat of it, takeaway on the sofa, an’ I’ve got movies. That sound good?’ He holds out his hand in an invitation for a low-five, and after a moment of consideration, Howard instead takes his hand and shakes it. Vince’s heart  _melts_

‘Alright, babe, c’mon, up with you.’ He clambers off the floor and hoists Howard up onto his hip. It feels weirdly nice to hold him there. He doesn’t know if Howard is technically too old to be held like a baby, but he certainly seems to like it; if Naboo doesn’t come up with that re-ageing potion soon, Vince is gonna have to sew himself one’a them baby bjorns, so he can just haul Howard around with him.

‘What we getting?’ Howard wants to know, half muffled in Vince’s shoulder, and Vince ruffles his smoky curls.

‘We’ll figure it out together, yeah? Take a look at the menus, and—actually, can–  _can_  you read?’ He knows Howard learnt to read way earlier than Vince did, but Vince still isn’t that great at reading and he’s twenty-five. He also doesn’t actually have any clue how old this Howard is, or what a normal reading level for a kid of his theoretical age even is.

‘Yeah!’ Howard says, somehow managing to be both eager to show off and disdainful of the question. ‘Books without pictures an’ everything! I got a whole shelf of ‘em at home.’ Vince can’t help but chuckle at the bragging, squeezing the boy in a little hug; he might be a nipper now, but he is still Howard, and that fills Vince with fondness.

‘Well’, he grins down at him, ‘you can help me read the menus then.’


End file.
